1. Field
The present invention relates to a technique of reducing the size of a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many forms of vehicles from a small vehicle to a large vehicle have been put to practical use as passenger vehicles. When size reduction is considered, a configuration of a vehicle front portion is important, and various proposals have been made for the configuration of the vehicle front portion (see, for example, FIG. 1 of Japanese Patent Publication No. 2007-069864 (Patent Document 1)).
In FIG. 1 of Patent Document 1, the left side of the drawing shows a vehicle front side and the right side of the drawing shows a vehicle rear side. In FIG. 1, reference numeral (20) (The number in parentheses indicates reference numeral described in Patent Document 1. The same shall apply hereinafter) denotes a suspension device. A front wheel axle with no reference numeral is disposed below the suspension device (20), and a steering device (30) is disposed on a vehicle rear side of the front wheel axle.
Specifically, the steering device (30) and the suspension device (20) are disposed on the vehicle rear side of the front wheel axle. The distance from the front wheel axle to a rear wheel axle is called wheelbase and is set individually for every vehicle. When the steering device (30) and the suspension device (20) are disposed on the vehicle rear side of the front wheel axle set based on the wheelbase, a vehicle cabin space becomes smaller.
However, particularly in a small vehicle whose vehicle width and vehicle length are restricted, the size of the vehicle cabin space is desired to be increased while devices for the vehicle front portion are disposed.